


c'mon let it set you free

by lilcrickee



Category: You Could Make a Life Series - Taylor Fitzpatrick
Genre: M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-04-25
Packaged: 2018-06-04 13:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6659233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilcrickee/pseuds/lilcrickee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had taken time for David to get used to this again - to it all, really: kissing Jake and sharing a bed with Jake and <i>being in a relationship with Jake</i> - but now David doesn’t feel anything but gratitude for having Jake here with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	c'mon let it set you free

**Author's Note:**

> if you're not reading [between the teeth](http://archiveofourown.org/series/64465) then you should be.
> 
> set in some hand-wavy future where david and jake get back together. at some point, this will probably become an au.
> 
> title from the jonas brothers' song "first time" because i'm trashy like that.
> 
> many thanks to [greenleaves-never](http://greenleaves-never.tumblr.com) for beta-ing this super quick for me and also inspiring me to write it in the first place when we were talking about how we wanted some david/jake cuddles. cheers, love!

David wakes up the morning of feeling a little breathless and slightly panicked. It’s five in the morning, hours before the alarm that Jake set, but anxiety’s had David waking every few hours in fits of restlessness.

“It’s okay,” Jake mumbles into David’s neck, a line of heat all down David’s back. It had taken time for David to get used to this again - to it all, really: kissing Jake and sharing a bed with Jake and _being in a relationship with Jake_ \- but now David doesn’t feel anything but gratitude for having Jake here with him.

“Okay,” David says, but it still comes out shakier than he’d like.

Jake sighs, presses a kiss to the back of David’s neck and rubs a hand along his ribs. “Please sleep,” he says. “It’s too early.”

It is, and David feels bad for waking Jake up. He rolls over, let’s Jake tug him in impossibly closer, and presses his nose to Jake’s throat. “Sorry,” he murmurs. 

Jake huffs out a breath that makes David’s hair ruffle. “Don’t be,” Jake says, smoothing his hand down David’s spine. “It’s okay. I love you.”

It’s been a long time since Jake has first said those words to David, but it still makes the breath catch in David’s throat. David has never said them back, feels guilty that he can’t make the syllables fall off his tongue, but he knows Jake knows. They wouldn’t be lying in bed together if he didn’t.

“I know,” David whispers against Jake’s skin, and it seems to soothe something in both of them because between one breath and the next, David falls back asleep.

 

 

Getting back together with Jake was hard.

“He didn’t do right by you,” Oleg said the morning after they had played Florida, after David had come back to the hotel well past curfew with hickeys blooming along his collarbones under his shirt. The comment made David flush and stutter, but Oleg had held up a hand. “But he is good for you, that is very plain to see.”

It wasn’t approval, but it was something, and with a lot of prodding from Kiro, they somehow managed to fall together again.

“Thank you,” Jake said, that first night when they had sorted out the mess that was their relationship.

“For what?” There were a lot of things that Jake could be thanking him for. David wanted to be sure.

“For not getting over me,” Jake mumbled. He reached out, laced their fingers together, and David clung tightly. Part of him would never forget Jake’s betrayal, but David had gone so long without Jake. He wouldn’t give him up now that he had him back.

 

 

David wakes up again to Rihanna telling him he’s got to _work, work, work, work, work, work_. He groans, tucks his face into Jake’s neck, and then sits up so fast he almost clocks himself on the bottom of Jake’s chin.

“David,” Jake says, reaching around him to turn off the alarm. 

“I’m going to be sick,” David mutters, and stumbles into the bathroom. He stares at himself for a long time in the mirror, splashes some cold water on his face, and tries to get his hands to stop shaking. It’s a fruitless effort, especially when David can’t help but run through all the possible scenarios for the day. And then he realizes, with mild horror, he actually is going to be sick.

When Jake comes into the bathroom David is sitting on the floor, head held in his hands and elbows propped on the rim of the toilet bowl. He spoons up behind David, wraps his arms around David’s waist and presses a kiss to his shoulder.

“I wish you didn’t feel this way,” Jake says sadly. “We don’t have to do this if you’re going to be sick over it.”

For a brief moment, David thinks about crawling back into bed with Jake. It’s something he’d never let himself have before The Incident, but David likes the warm weight of Jake at his back, anchoring him. He feels like he might shake out of his skin.

But David’s always been responsible, knows he can’t brush this off.

“No,” he whispers. Jake kisses the back of his neck, the exposed skin of his forearm, the spot under his ear that always makes him shiver and moan. “I have to do this.”

“Okay,” Jake says. “I’m with you.”

 

 

“So, I have done good job?” Kiro asked early in the summer under the heat of the New York sun. Even though none of them played in the city anymore, David had still found himself being drawn back to Vladislav, with Oleg and Kiro not far behind.

“What do you mean?” David had been stretching, trying to work a kink out of his back.

“You and Jake,” Kiro prompted. “You two are happy now? No more sad faces?”

David frowns at his shoes. “I didn’t-”

“You lie, Davidson. I spent many summers with you. You had a sad face.”

It was probably true. David thought that in all the time he’s known Kiro, he’s gotten better at being a bit more expressive. But when Kiro demonstrated David’s sad face back at him, David frowned.

“Isn’t that what I look like all the time?” he asked.

Kiro raised an eyebrow and David felt himself flush. “I hate you,” he mumbled, ducking his head.

“I love you too, Davidson,” Kiro said fondly, patting him on the head.

 

 

Jake tries his best to draw David out of his head, and David appreciates it, but he still feels anxious. It reminds him of the days just after The Incident, when David could hardly bring himself to get out of bed, when going out for a game made him nauseous and nervous.

“I love you,” Jake says while David’s struggling with the laces on his shoes. He’s leaning against the front door of their rental, looking effortlessly put together. David had insisted they wore dress pants, despite the summer heat, but Jake had bullied him into wearing a short-sleeve button up. Jake’s got a pair of dark sunglasses hanging from the open collar of his.

“I know,” David says, feeling like a broken record. 

Jake comes over, then, and kneels next to David. For a brief moment, David’s afraid Jake will offer to tie his shoes for him, but Jake just brushes the hair off of David’s forehead and presses a dry kiss there. 

“We’ll get through this,” he says. His smile is small, but still fond, and David exhales shakily. 

“Together,” David says quietly, and Jake’s grin widens. 

“Duh,” Jake replies, and David can’t help but lean up to kiss him.

 

 

The morning after David and Jake had gotten back together, David came out to Kiro and Oleg.

“I know you already know,” David mumbled. His heart was beating a mile a minute and his chest felt impossibly tight. “But, uh, Jake and I are dating. Which means - I like men.”

The touch startled him, made his head snap up just so that he could mash his face into Oleg’s shoulder. Oleg was hugging him. And then Kiro joined and they stood like some strange conglomerate in the middle of David’s rented apartment.

“Thank you for telling us,” Oleg said, warm and rumbly, and David felt himself relax. Perhaps they had already known, but telling his friends that he was gay had been harder than David had expected. Telling people who didn’t know would be harder still.

“Thanks for looking out for me,” David replied, feeling his chest fill with air and something close to happiness.

 

 

“I love you a lot,” Jake says, glancing over at David in the passenger seat, “but if you puke in my car you may have to sleep on the couch tonight.”

It’s a joke, David knows it is, but it still makes something tighten in David’s chest. “Oh,” he says faintly, closing his eyes. 

“David,” Jake says, and David feels, rather than sees, Jake pull the car over.

“Jake, I-” David starts, but he can’t get the words out. It’s the worst feeling in the world, feeling this helpless and out of control.

“Hey, breathe in for me,” Jake says. David feels when Jake slides his hand around the back of his neck, hears when Jake unclips his seatbelt to fully face him. “In and out, four count, okay?”

They’ve done this too often over the past week for David to feel embarrassed about it, but something about this entire situation still makes David want to cry. He wishes he could be as cool and collected as Jake, but David’s long since resigned himself to never being able to look anything close to cool. 

“We’re going to be late,” David says when his breath is finally coming easy again. He opens his eyes and glances over at Jake, who looks wrecked. Like seeing David in so much distress caused him pain.

“Like that matters,” Jake grits out. “David, I don’t know if I want to do this if you’re going to have panic attacks in my car about it.”

David frowns at his hands where they’re clenched tightly together in his lap. “Jake,” he says, has to clear his throat from how ragged his voice sounds. “If I don’t do this, I think I’ll be having panic attacks far more often than just in your car.”

Jake sighs, scrubs a hand over his face and then leans over the divide to kiss David chastely. “I hate it when you’re right,” he mutters against David’s lips, but he pulls back and turns his blinker on, merging onto the road without saying anything else.

 

 

David had forced his parents into the same restaurant for the first time since the divorce in order to tell them he had a boyfriend. He could only imagine what he had sounded like on the phone to both of them in order to have gotten them in the same place, but it hardly mattered anymore. David was just afraid whether or not his voice would work at all for this conversation.

His parents were already seated when he arrived, feeling hot under the collar and distinctly out of place. The restaurant had been his father’s suggestion, and it was one of those places that had dim lighting and a wine list that took up more than one page.

“David,” his mother said curtly, standing up and hugging him briefly. His father slapped him on the back. They were sitting on the same side of the table, as if they had known that this conversation would go better if David could face both of them at once.

He had, after all, called them together for this.

The server came and took their drink orders - “A bottle of the Merlot, I think,” David’s father said - and then their table fell silent. David knew this was his cue, his time to speak, but he couldn’t get his mouth to open, it felt like it was glued shut.

“David,” his mother said again, and David stood up, abruptly. 

“Excuse me,” he mumbled, and made a hasty retreat to the washroom.

The David that stared back at him from the reflection in the mirror was pale and sweaty looking. David dabbed at his forehead with a paper towel before shakily pulling his phone from his pocket.

It only rang once before Jake was saying, “So, how did it go?”

David opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He felt the panic rising in his chest.

“David?” Jake asked. His name sounded different coming from Jake than it did from his mother, and David latched onto that. Latched onto the thought of Jake waiting for him in their hotel room ten minutes away.

“I haven’t told them yet,” David whispered. “Jake. What if they- what if they don’t like me?”

Jake laughed, but it wasn’t cruel sounding. In fact, it sounded a little sad.

“Good thing you have me,” he said. “And Oleg. And Kiro.”

And that was true. David had never found much of a family with his parents, but the small one he had built for himself out of hockey players seemed to suit him fine. 

“Okay,” David said, staring himself down in the mirror. It didn’t matter what his parents thought. He just had to tell them.

“I love you,” Jake said, and David made a small noise in the back of his throat.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, before hanging up his phone and going back out into the restaurant.

 

 

David’s parents are already at the restaurant when they get there, seated on the patio next to each other. David thinks that it’s so they don’t have to look at each other, but they’re both on their phones anyway, so he thinks it hardly matters.

“Dave,” his father says, getting up to greet them once they’ve weaved their way through the tables to them. David feels Jake flinch on his behalf. 

“Hi,” David says

“And you must be -” 

“Jake Lourdes,” Jake says sunnily, reaching out to shake hands with both of David’s parents. They seem surprised at how cheerful Jake is, but maybe after years of raising a quiet and unassuming pre-teen they had just expected all people David’s age to act like David.

It only takes David ten minutes to wonder why he agreed to this. The meeting had been his father’s idea, and his mother had agreed to come because apparently, when it comes to David’s sexuality, they’ve decided to be a team. It bothers David more than he wants to admit.

But within the first ten minutes, Jake orders water and waves off David’s father’s insistence on wine, tells his parents a funny story about Kiro that doesn’t make them laugh (David cracks a smile), and manages to ask two different questions that leave his parents looking equally stumped.

“Wait, so you weren’t at Lake Placid?” Jake asks, in reference to a story he had told about the tournament in which both he and David had taken part in.

David’s mother looks a little sheepish, though David is certain that she hadn’t felt bad about missing the tournament at the time.

“Uh, no,” she says, sipping at her wine. “I had work.”

“And I was in Calgary,” David’s father adds.

Jake frowns at his water and sneaks a look at David. David, in return, schools his face into a polite mask. It makes Jake frown harder.

“And the Calder nomination?” he asks quietly, and David almost wants to punch him because he has to know the answer, he has to know better.

Both David’s parents shake their heads, and even though it’s been a long time since David has relied on his parents for anything, this still hurts. The fact that his mother couldn’t be bothered to come and that his father would have just taken advantage of the moment still burns in David’s stomach.

“Dad,” David says desperately, grasping at straws. “How’s work?”

David’s father is only too happy to talk about his work, and the longer he talks, the stonier Jake seems to get. David puts a placating hand on his knee under the table where no one can see, but it doesn’t seem to help much. He only seems to loosen up a bit when their food comes and no one is saying much of anything anymore.

Between the meal and the bill, Jake answers a few polite questions about his own family and playing in Florida and how he had met David. Jake answers them all with a calm face and a slightly icy undertone, and he grips David’s hand tight under the table. One or both of them is shaking, and David knows it’d be for entirely different reasons.

David pays the bill, even though his parents both protest, but he waves them off with a shrug of indifference. “It’s fine,” he says, even though nothing about the afternoon had been fine at all.

“Call when you come out to Calgary,” his father says when they shake hands outside the front of the restaurant. His mother doesn’t say anything, just gives him a hug and shakes Jake’s hand. The four of them leave in different directions, David following Jake down the street back towards the car.

Jake unlocks the car but he doesn’t start it right away. He’s staring at his hands where they’re white-knuckled on the steering wheel, and David realizes he’s trying to get them to stop shaking.

“Jake?” he asks, quiet, cautious.

“They don’t even know you!” Jake says at last, and it reminds David of what Kiro had said to him when he had won the Art Ross. “David, they’re your parents and they don’t know anything about you!”

“It’s my fault,” David says automatically. “I don’t try very hard to keep them updated-”

“Bullshit,” Jake says vehemently, turning to face David. David doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jake this angry. He’s looking at David, now, and David wants to reach out and brush the hair back from Jake’s face, wants to calm him, but something makes him stop. Something holds him back.

“David,” Jake says, and it sounds sadder this time. “They’re supposed to be interested in the things you do, and support your passions, and call you every day the first year you’re away from home because they miss you so much.”

It takes David a moment to realize that Jake’s talking about his own family. David can’t imagine his mother calling him every other week, let alone everyday, and it makes a lump form in his throat.

“They don’t deserve you,” Jake says into the silence, and David looks up at him. He sees Jake at eighteen, stealing the first overall pick from him; at nineteen taking the Calder. He sees Jake at twenty, nudging his way into David’s heart and then breaking it. Jake at twenty-three, totally in love. David thinks that maybe, he’s the undeserving one.

“I’m sorry I made you do that,” David says, finally finding his voice, but Jake shakes his head.

“I’m glad,” Jake says, turning around again and buckling his seat belt. He starts the car and turns them back towards their rental. “They’re not getting Christmas cards this year.”

It’s something so mundane, so future-oriented, that it startles a laugh from David. He still wishes that lunch had gone better, but he realizes now it went exactly how he had expected it to go. And he hadn’t had to do it alone. David watches Jake fiddle with the radio, sing along to some obnoxious pop song David’s heard too many times this summer, and thinks that maybe, he won’t have to do things alone ever again. 

 

****

**C O D A**

David wakes up at the end of summer to the sun streaming in through the window. They hadn’t closed the blinds the night before, too wrapped up in getting as much of each other as they could before the start of the season.

Hockey has always made David happy; it’s always been his thing, his lifeline, but now there’s a heavy weight sitting in his chest. The weeks following meeting with his parents had left Jake clingy and cuddly, and though David protested to having Jake curl around him like an octopus any time they watched movies, he thinks he may miss it when he heads back to Washington.

That he’ll miss Jake.

“You’re thinking too much,” Jake mumbles, startling David a little. It makes Jake laugh, curl his arm tighter around David’s stomach and press a kiss to his bare shoulder. 

“Sorry,” David whispers. 

Jake sighs and untangles himself from David, pulling him over onto his back and then bracing himself over David, covering him like a blanket.

“You’ll have the Kurmazovs,” Jake says, rubbing a thumb over one of David’s eyebrow, affectionate. “And a team that likes you.”

 _But I won’t have you,_ David thinks, but can’t bring himself to say it.

“You don’t need people in your life who are going to make you feel shitty,” Jake continues. “You have plenty of people that like you, David.”

He leans down and kisses David then, and David would normally protest - neither of them have brushed their teeth - but he needs the comfort now. He clings tightly to Jake, kisses back like he may never get this again. 

“And you?” David asks against Jake’s lips when they pull back to breathe.

“Me?” Jake asks, nipping at David’s lower lip just to hear David’s breath catch. “I love you, David.”

David inhales, breathes out slowly. In six hours he’s getting on a plane to Washington; an hour after that Jake’s going back to Florida. The little bubble that has been their summer is breaking apart, and for the first time in a long time, David feels sad about it.

“I love you too,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> you're welcome to follow me on [tumblr](http://lilcrickee.tumblr.com) and my [twitter](http://twitter.com/lilcrickee). (though if you add me on twitter, maybe shoot me a message (especially if you're also locked!) so i know who you are.)


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